"You know better than that, Mar. You know very well that whenever you appear the girls have all to hide their heads. They are none of them fit to hold a candle to you. What old age may make of you I don't know; but sure I am, no creature that treads God's earth graces it more than you do!"
"Oh! there's pretty words, whatever, Hugh," said Mari, dropping her knitting on her lap, and letting her hands fall with it, and gazing out rather sadly over Hugh's shoulder to the glowing sea and sky beyond.
"You are going to see Gwladys to-night, of course? She will be expecting you."
"Yes," said Hugh; "I am going now—but—but Mari, I felt I wanted to say something before I went. We have been friends for years—we shall be friends still—eh?" and he held out his broad brown hand.
Mari placed her own in it.
"Friends forever, Hugh, as long as life shall last!"
"And after," he said. "Well, fforwel, and God bless you!" and Hugh made his way under the wreaths and banners which already spanned the road, in readiness for next day's festivities, leaving Mari to her thoughts and to her knitting, upon which by and by a large tear fell.
"Hoi! hoi! stop a bit!" said 'n'wncwl Jos, whom Hugh met stumping down the road. "Don't go under the banners before the wedding. It brings bad luck, man."
"It's too late," answered Hugh jovially, "for I have been under two or three," and his beaming smile and sparkling eyes, as he turned up the path towards Gwladys' cottage, showed that whatever the future had in store for him, to-night he was well content.
[[1]] My boy!